sprawler

radical : nature

admin — Wed, 12 May 2010 15:26:02 +0000

For my Nature of Code final, I presented a part of my working thesis to show how the lighting pattern of the project was using principles learned from class. I struggled for some time to try to come up with a sketch that would make sense for the project but also stay true to the nature of the piece. As the development for Radical Everything began from ideas regarding emergent ecologies and thus the idea of simple interactions creating more complex behaviors and patterns, I thought it at first appropriate to come up with a lighting pattern that would mimic more closely that of a cellular automata pattern. So I began to code a 1-Dimensional sketch that would turn my LEDs from a HIGH to LOW state based on these simple algorithms. However, I began to quickly realize that any user who would be entering the field of this installation would quickly become confused at what would be a seemingly random pattern of lighting without any basis or grounding in what the sketch was actually doing. Therefore I began a second sketch based on Dan Shiffman’s advice that more closely adhered to my midterm in which “seeds” were generated (in this case by a threshold value in my potentiometer, which will soon be replaced by a proximity sensor) that would cause neighboring lights in the array to fade on, based on a passing function of time as it looped through each LED in my array. For future iterations, I would love to add more dynamic behavior to the lighting pattern such as: (a) adding oscillation to the timing so that the lights would fade on and off more dynamically, and (b) adding genetic behavior to the lighting so that each subsequent generation of the lighting pattern would adhere more towards areas of higher activity in the installation.

Detailed view showing the LEDs arrayed around one node of the installation.

source code for lighting sketch here

midterm : the DLA remix

admin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:58:57 +0000

In the end, I forewent using Toxi’s library and instead opted to implement particle systems because I wanted a better understanding of how to use them. Here is a video of the end result. I added some perlin noise to vary the color and add a bit more sparkle to the “crystals.” But the code is using four particle systems which hit the “seeds,” each of which are generated upon a mouse press. As the particles hit the seeds, they will become part of the seed and expand the cluster, forming the branching-like DLA pattern.

source code here

midterm proposal

admin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:23:29 +0000

For my midterm in Nature of Code, I’d like to be able to simulate a part of my evolving thesis idea which broadly speaking, is the notion of a parasitic lighting system that draws electricity to nourish its own expanding, growing needs. This ‘nourishment’ is redirected towards the dynamic growth of crystal structures grown on reconfigurable, modular ‘offsprings’.

Breakable: Rhino Rendering

The crystallization process can occur through what is known as DLA (Diffusion Limited Aggregation) in which particles move randomly due to Brownian motion until it collides with the base seed particles with a “sticking coefficient”.

I think this is better explained here: http://www.physics.uc.edu/~pinskia/dla/DLA.html

and here: http://classes.yale.edu/fractals/panorama/physics/dla/DLA.html

I’ve been looking at ways to develop a sketch which will use camera tracking to have the crystal growth start a seed based on where a person is standing, and using motion detection so that the less he or she moves, the more the seed will have a chance to grow into larger aggregations…

Toxi recently posted about a library called simultis which explores this DLA process with some amazing looking results: http://toxiclibs.org/2010/02/new-package-simutils/

I’ve been roughly experimenting with this and using a more traditional 2-dimensional approach to the issue but haven’t decided yet what would be the best course of action from here on out. I feel like the toxiclibs library would take a long time to get through (let alone render and process!) but the results would be stunning. On the other hand, there’s nothing wrong with using particle systems to simulate the process as well.

MY USER: THE ULTIMATE PLAYER

admin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 20:31:39 +0000

latest thought towards the thesis-gauntlet…

Who is my user?

OK, so I got it. My User, is an active participant with the power to recreate space. User 1. Master Control Program 0.

ooooscillating

admin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 05:08:58 +0000

For Nature of Code last week, we had to program an example of something demonstrating oscillating movement. Although I originally thought of the particular forces that exist between the nucleus and electrons of an atom, I decided to play up the idea by relating the gravitational mass of the “nucleus” in my sketch with the degree of oscillation between the corresponding “electrons”.

This code was heavily adapted from Shiffman’s code.

spandex restretched

admin — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 22:59:56 +0000

Mike and I have been continuing our progress with our series of video projections up at the Bronx Museum with Acconci studios. We decided that some new, better footage was required, so we filmed a new series of objects with the intention of keeping it purely abstract instead of the human gestural moments that were too recognizable based on anatomy. Some of the experiments are below. The footage was than edited and multiplied to highlight certain aspects of the architecture of the corian structure.

Work in progress. Content for the Acconci Studio installation at Bronx Museum 2009-10.

weather reported

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 03:32:02 +0000

As the final revision to the yahoo weather XML assignment, I thought it appropriate to place it within more of a spatial context, moving the whole frame back into space and letting the information interact with the blinds by having the text be enveloped by the movement.

Weather Data Visualization from Angela Chen on Vimeo.

deathstar automata

admin — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:15:10 +0000

Deathstar Automata is a modular video “pod” that can be reconfigured and built as a simultaneous sculptural wall divider and multi-plane projection surface. Its form and content is a physical manifestation of a branching recursion. As a video sculpture it utilizes a geometrical shape as the means for creating modular yet singular mutli-plane projections. On the technical side, it uses Augmented Reality as the means for letting the camera know where to project the moving image.

color study

tree study in Maya (mad props to Nick Rubin for the assistance)

video sculpture final proposal

admin — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 04:39:03 +0000

drawing. front elevation

drawing. side elevation

rendering: rhino/photoshop color study

Forgive me. I sort of know where I’m going here and I sort of don’t. It started off as a project with Adam Lassy using boxes and QR codes to implement Augmented Reality on top of the forms. The idea started off as an exercise of redefining form which in turn would redefine function type thing, ie. how you arranged the boxes would determine what would be projected upon them (ie. a lamp, or a dresser that would than function as one). But now I’m off on some tangent and I’m not sure how or where it will end up. I started off with the block which I played with and came up with the form you see here. These blocks I wanted to be multiplied and stacked upon so it still has the modularity aspect but I was playing with the idea of having the images projected upon the boxes to become a sort of chandelier. but maybe it would just be a wall sculpture…seeing that there could be a lot of complications with having the camera see the markers from the ceiling and how to hang the whole structure off the ceiling without blocking the markers so that the camera can see it in order to activate the projections.

bad to bad ass

admin — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:33:47 +0000

UPDATE:

military expenditures visualized as a familiar video game. The size of the explosion is directly proportional to the amount of money spent, in millions of dollars.

the “bad” data visualizations that we are starting off with:

(1) NYC waste

(2) Military expenditures

(3) topographical map

GAME PLAN